Promouvoir la communication pour le changement social
Taking Sides
Training manual on media literacy in India Imprimer E-mail
Écrit par Philip Lee, Deputy Director Program, WACC   
Vendredi, 14 Août 2009 09:04
There are no translations available.


In 2005 WACC participated in a workshop together with World Council of Churches and the Bossey Ecumenical Institute to look at the challenges posed by newly emerging technologies. The outcome was a discussion document called Convergent Technologies, which prompted a number of organisations around the world to pursue the debate and to contextualise different questions.
In India the Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society (CISRS) decided to hold three workshops to discuss ethical responses to new communication technologies from the people's perspective. The first took place in Nagpur and comprised training of trainers in new media literacy with the aim of enabling young people to discern the characteristics, language, technology, and ideology of new media and to analyse its texts critically.

The second workshop was on ‘Understanding the digital divide in the Indian Context’ and took place in Bangalore (see YouTube). Its purpose was to define the digital divide and understand it from a historical perspective. Particiapnts reviewed the digital divide from the standpoint of India's 'information society' and examined the role of media conglomerates and information imbalances North and South.

The third workshop was on  'Understanding India’s information society' and focused on its characteristics and the changes taking place in social practices, labour practices, political processes, and in the sphere of media and public policies. In a second phase, research was carried out to strengthen community radio as a way of catering to the people’s needs and concerns at the local level and to assess its contribution to people’s empowerment.

As a result of these workshops, CISRS has brought out a New Media Literacy Trainer's Manual exploring questions such as: Who will own these technologies? Who will control them? Who will be ethically responsible for their application and use? In particular, what will be the long-term impact of such technologies of information on society? Will we be able to motivate enough ethical reasoning to counterbalance scientific opportunism, commercial greed, and the consolidation of political power?

WACC is delighted to assist CISRS in making the manual more widely available. It can be downloaded here.



Add this page to your favorite Social Networking websites
Digg! Reddit! Del.icio.us! Google! Live! Facebook! Technorati! StumbleUpon! Yahoo! Twitter! LinkedIn!
 

La WACC encourage la communication pour favoriser le changement social. Elle est convaincue que la communication est un droit humain fondamental qui définit l’humanité commune des peuples, renforce les cultures, favorise la participation, crée une communauté et défit la tyrannie et l'oppression.

The World Association for Christian Communication is a UK Registered Charity (number 296073) and a Company registered in England and Wales (number 2082273) with its Registered Office at 36 Causton Street, London SW1P 4ST. It is an incorporated Charitable Organisation in Canada (number 83970 9524 RR0001) with its head office at 308 Main Street, Toronto ON, M4C 4X7.